Rkia Elaroui Cornell
![]() |
Teaching Professor and Language Coordinator in ArabicOffice: S-315 Callaway CenterPhone: 404.727.8212Email: recorne@emory.eduCurriculum Vitae |
Rkia Elaroui Cornell is Teaching Professor and Coordinator of the Arabic program at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her Ph.D. Cum Laude from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam), Faculty of Theology and Philosophy in 2013. Before coming to Emory she taught at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. In 1999 she published Early Sufi Women, a translation of Dhikr an-niswa al-muta'abbidat al-sufiyyatt by Abu 'Abd ar-Rahman al-Sulami (d.1021 CE). This work has since been translated into French, Indonesian, Persian, and Mandarin Chinese. In 2019 she published Rabi'a from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya (ca. 717-801 CE). Besides Arabic language pedagogy, she specializes in the spirituality of the feminine in Islam and has given many lectures and conference presentations on the subjects of Qur'anic exegesis and women in Islam.